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#21 |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Southern California
Posts: 22,071
Local Time: 03:01 PM
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I think it is an extreme minority that believe they can influence or "trigger" end times.
__________________Every Christian should have a basic knowledge of prophecy and end times as part of knowing God's Word. The mistake comes when we try to match names, number, times and events to the events described in Scripture - which directly warns us against making such predictions. Government policy to trigger the Second Coming? |
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#22 | |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
FOB Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Live from Boston
Posts: 8,334
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But wouldn't this be unholy? Unchristian? Just plain wrong??? ![]() |
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#23 | |
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Posts: 11,782
Local Time: 07:01 PM
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It is my view that there are many prominent extremists in the Bush, Jr. administration, who--right or wrong--are wishing to advance the end of the world. And you are correct, nbcrusader, the Bible does warn against trying to make such predictions for the end of the world. Unfortunately, we may have to learn the hard way why separation of church and state has always been necessary. Anyhow, these are some random thoughts. I'm likely to change my mind on this. Melon |
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#24 | |
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Posts: 11,782
Local Time: 07:01 PM
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Future American Police State
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Melon |
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#25 |
The Fly
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 36
Local Time: 11:01 PM
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by melon
Is it? I think the Republican Party has done an excellent job of stacking this "war on terrorism" to a point that no "real" American should question it. It should be noted that, with the creation of the Homeland Security department that the Republican Party filibustered the bill 12 times before the election--only to blame delays on the "unpatriotic" Democrats during the campaign. A brilliantly Machiavellian tactic. I don't recall this tactic being used that often. In fact, I recall one candidate using it as he was campaigning during the midterm elections and the Democrats made a big stink over Republican's capitalizing on the war on terror. I don't see how you can argue that the administration has prevented people from criticizing it, when all the liberal pundits have done nothing but criticize starting from a month after 9-11. Remember, Daschle kept pushing further and further to see whether he could pin the events of 9-11 on the current administration, but he failed because the evidence wasn't there and Clinton had as much (if not more) blame than Bush. Then, of course, you have every liberal pundit constantly attacking the administration including: Bill Maher, Ted Rall, Arianna Huffington, Michael Moore, etc etc. Then, you have every liberal site and forum on the web going crazy pinning all kinds of conspiracy theories on Bush. You have members of his own party doubting his war plans on Iraq. Clearly, I haven't heard anyone (of consequence) tell these pundits that they're not "real" Americans. I think it's a mostly imagined persecution on the part of liberals. The only time I can of where it was "unAmerican" to question the President, was just a few months after the attack when the country was trying to unite. Seems like a ton of dissent to me. Machiavelli would have been ashamed. "Machiavelian"? Practicing those alternatives to N*zism already? Also, I wouldn't mock the process of filibustering, because it seems likely that Democrats are going to have to revert to it as a recourse in the Congress. That might come back to bite you in the ass. Of course, "1984" was a scathing critique of Soviet communism, but I would also argue that the "choice" in capitalism is little more than an illusion. We used to chuckle at the fact that the government owned all the property in communism; but, in America, if you don't pay your property "taxes," the government can come in and take it all away. In effect, we are renting our property from our government...so much for "ownership." You also have to pay taxes on fast food and other purchases. Are we not the owners of that? I hope we are because it's going to be hard to vomit up that BLT I ate in the early 90's if the tax man cometh. We pay taxes for marriage too. That means that the government can regulate who gets married! We pay taxes on our income and not paying those taxes can lead to jail time! The government can literally put you in jail for not paying them money. Seriously, it seems that if you're a liberal (or have some liberal ideas), then you shouldn't be attacking property tax (or any tax), because taxes are going to pay for social programs and the government isn't exactly in a budget surplus period. This is NOT the choice that we're supposed to find in capitalism. It isn't the choice to take advantage of this country's resources and not pay for any of it. It's the choice of religion, political affialiation\idealogy, etc etc. The "dirty" fact of the Orwellian nightmare is that its success is dependent on the ignorance of the populace--a reinvention of history ("our Founding Fathers were Christians") and semantical games (Department of "Homeland Security"). Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. And it is no secret that the Roman "Republic" mutated into an autocratic "Empire." And do not think it impossible to monitor all electronic communications simultaneously and globally... Melon That's not the "dirty" fact of an Orwellian nightmare. It's the most obvious fact. Remember the book? They had ministries to take care of that. I believe it was called the ministry of truth or something to that effect. A "dirty" little secret is something that ISN'T obvious on first inspection. Still, I don't believe that the government can effectively monitor the many terabytes of information passed per second around the global web. 1 character = 1 byte Terabyte= 1,099,511,627,776 bytes If you consider all the different encryption schemes, operating systems, proxy servers, etc etc, it doesn't add up. That's just internet traffic! Not considering telephone, snail mail, etc. It's unlikely that the government will be able to convict someone based on tracing them across the internet if they (the suspects) can make a viable arguement that someone else could have been using their computer. Most intelligent people use anonymous proxy servers to do their "bad deeds" on the internet anyways. |
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#26 | |||||||
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Posts: 11,782
Local Time: 07:01 PM
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[QUOTE][B]Clearly, I haven't heard anyone (of consequence) tell these pundits that they're not "real" Americans. I think it's a mostly imagined persecution on the part of liberals. The only time I can of where it was "unAmerican" to question the President, was just a few months after the attack when the country was trying to unite. Seems like a ton of dissent to me. Machiavelli would have been ashamed. "Machiavelian"? Practicing those alternatives to N*zism already? Quote:
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In fact, my beef with the Republican Party is that they are fiscally irresponsible, slashing taxes for the top 1% with one hand and spending us into oblivion with the newest military toys in the other. If I had the chance to be in the presidency, I would reduce spending, pay off the national debt, and then cut taxes immensely. We have too much of a bureaucracy, and we're bleeding at the seams. I think we should be upset that nearly 15% of our national budget every year goes to national debt payments...and that should increase, due to the Bush Administration's fiscal irresponsibility with the last tax cut. But I digress... Quote:
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Proxy servers are useless if all of them are being monitored. A proxy server still has to hook up to the internet backbone--just as all internet traffic does. Telephony is also easy to monitor with the right equipment at the central office. The sheer reality is that, due to the fact that all electromagnetic waves travel at or near the speed of light, you could have all of your traffic routed to a monitoring site, then en route to you, without you ever noticing. Snail mail is different, because it is not an electronic mode of communication. Melon |
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#27 | |
Offishul Kitteh Doctor
Forum Moderator Join Date: Aug 2002
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Quote:
Also, I don't see how it is possible for us to "induce" the Rapture/2nd Coming - God will use people when the time is right, and this could be coming up on the right time, but it is all under His control, our wishing and pushing is not going to make it happen any sooner.
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#28 | |
New Yorker
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Los Angeles, CA USA
Posts: 2,551
Local Time: 04:01 PM
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Sure, why not? |
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#29 |
The Fly
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 36
Local Time: 11:01 PM
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I guess if we aren't glued to C-SPAN, we'll never see it.
You'll never see it because it's imagined. It's a common thing for a group to exagerate persecution for political gain. Jesse would be proud. Pay attention. I wasn't mocking it. It only seems odd that a party would filibuster its own idea, and then blame it on the other side. Politics, anyone? I don't believe the Republicans were filibustering their own bill. They didn't like the version the Democrats wanted. Politics, anyone? Are you kidding me? Yeah, liberals are never guilty of politics. Psst. I think this is a flat out silly comparison. You pay taxes on food *once* and its yours. You pay property taxes *every* year. They never end, and, as such, you never own your property. First off, "boywonder," I'm not some archetypical liberal. I'm against property taxes, but am for graduated income taxes. I am for modifying sales taxes, so that they are required to be included in the sticker price of the item, rather than added after when at the cash register. I'm for modifying capital gains taxes, so that those who own their property non-speculatively (in other words, you aren't in it for the short-term "capital gains"), aren't taxed it. I think that schools should be funded at the state level, rather than the local level, with all public schools getting equal funding. No more "rich" and "poor" school districts. Granted that taxes are paid up front on food, but your reasoning that the government has too much power because of property taxes is silly considering you could also make the same arguement for marriage and income (arguements you conveniently ignored). If I made a fortune from an invention and the government took half of my profits, then why not criticize the government for being too powerful there? Because the mean inventor was hording all his profits and not giving it away to the poor like he should have? In fact, my beef with the Republican Party is that they are fiscally irresponsible, slashing taxes for the top 1% with one hand and spending us into oblivion with the newest military toys in the other. If I had the chance to be in the presidency, I would reduce spending, pay off the national debt, and then cut taxes immensely. The top 1% of income earners already pay a record-high 35% of federal taxes, according to the Joint Economic Committee. And the top 25%–which means those making more than $50,607 per year–pay 83% of all taxes. Thus, any cut, no matter how small, must of necessity benefit those who pay most of the nation’s bills. Our government is not Robin Hood. Our government is not Robin Hood. Say it with me now..... Charging that the Republicans are responsible for too much government spending is just ridiculous. We didn't have a surplus in the 90's because Clinton was a great fiscal manager. Liberals love to spend government $$$ on social programs and these programs are ripe with bureaucracy. Let's not deny it. Yes..."choice." And how funny how all the "choices" cost the same. How all cars have similar frames and guts to them. How all television shows follow the same formula. How the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are fairly similar in practice, when you cut out all the campaign rhetoric. Yes..."choice." Television shows don't follow the same formula. Some sitcoms perhaps, but that's an oversimplification. Cars look similar so we are actually not choosing? Please. A pinto is not a Lamborghini. I don't think Republicans and Democrats are the same. Perhaps you weren't paying attention to the issues. Do you really think Gore would be doing the same thing Bush is now? Please, any Democrats who believe this, please raise your hands. Would we have a tax cut, a war with Iraq, etc etc? No way. True enough, but this is a semantical argument on your part. Not a semantical arguement on MY part. This is common sense to anyone who read the book and knows what a "dirty" little secret is. Ha! If you go by PC standards, then, yes, it would be difficult to process all those terabytes. However, top of the line supercomputers can process this nearly effortlessly. Now link hundreds of these together. Any proof of this? You didn't address the issue of encryption methods, etc. Proxy servers are useless if all of them are being monitored. A proxy server still has to hook up to the internet backbone--just as all internet traffic does. An anonymous proxy server is just that...anonymous. The person who runs the proxy server retains (or chooses not to retain) the logs of what IP addresses were receiving what packets. Most proxy servers are used solely for the purpose of illegal distribution of files, so I don't suspect these are the type of people who want to help out the government in any way they can. Telephony is also easy to monitor with the right equipment at the central office. The sheer reality is that, due to the fact that all electromagnetic waves travel at or near the speed of light, you could have all of your traffic routed to a monitoring site, then en route to you, without you ever noticing. Care to explain the science behind how electromagnetic waves of varying frequencies can be "rerouted" to a central location? Trillions of gamma rays, microwaves, x-rays, radio waves, etc are going to be sent to a central location where they can all be decoded and processed? ![]() |
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#30 | |
New Yorker
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Los Angeles, CA USA
Posts: 2,551
Local Time: 04:01 PM
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Hence, they are not anonymous. |
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#31 |
The Fly
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 36
Local Time: 11:01 PM
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Here's a FAQ on anonymous proxies:
What is an anonymous proxy server? Anonymous proxy servers hide your IP address and thereby prevent your from unauthorized access to your computer through the Internet. They do not provide anyone with your IP address and effectively hide any information about you and your reading interests. Besides that, they don’t even let anyone know that you are surfing through a proxy server. Anonymous proxy servers can be used for all kinds of Web-services, such as Web-Mail (MSN Hot Mail, Yahoo mail), web-chat rooms, FTP archives, etc. It IS anonymous unless you use one that actually NOT an anonymous proxy. Of course, you conspiracy theorists out there will believe anything you want, so this arguement doesn't matter. |
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#32 | |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Southern California
Posts: 22,071
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Re: *runs off to write screenplay* heheh..
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I know a pastor who was invited by the White House to provide feedback on various issues. If he had gotten any hint of this policy (which amounts to "let's trigger the Second Coming so all us good Christians will be raptured and don't have to go to work tomorrow"), he would have come unglued. The religious right has their agenda – I don’t believe it goes this far. |
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#33 | |
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Posts: 11,782
Local Time: 07:01 PM
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Sorry...there is no real anonymity on the internet! Melon |
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#34 | |
The Fly
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 36
Local Time: 11:01 PM
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#35 | |
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Posts: 11,782
Local Time: 07:01 PM
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Quote:
The government recently did use the "black box" to spy on one particular customer at an ISP, but, as they had admitted, the box could have been used to spy on everyone, if they had chosen to. Have a good night, boywonder. Melon |
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#36 | |
The Fly
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 36
Local Time: 11:01 PM
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#37 | |
New Yorker
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Los Angeles, CA USA
Posts: 2,551
Local Time: 04:01 PM
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The issue here is not conspiracy theories, it's personal privacy. You argue that our freedom in not based on privacy. Very well. |
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#38 |
The Fly
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 36
Local Time: 11:01 PM
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Carnivore is a very limited system. It cannot monitor every electromagnetic wave. I'm arguing that there are ways to bypass government spying to some extent, but they're probably capable of monitoring you if they REALLY wanted to. They could setup fake anonymous proxies, etc. The thing is, why would the government go through all that trouble to track the activity of the average citizen?
Also, why harp on the means of doing this? Isn't this just pointless speculation fueled by one too many dystopian novels being used to attack Bush. |
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#39 | ||
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Posts: 11,782
Local Time: 07:01 PM
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Quote:
And your constant adoration of anonymous proxies is starting to get laughable. All the government needs to do is monitor from the ISP level! Didn't you read my little post on what the government did at Verizon? There are also 13 key computers, apparently, that make up the internet backbone. If all of these go down, so will the internet. Do you not think it is easy to set up a tracking device at this level? Quote:
Melon |
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#40 | ||
Refugee
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: on a one of these small green spots at that blue planet at the end of the milky way
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(And they tend to ignore the fact that it was the mistake of humans in the Secret Services and not the lack of laws which lead to success for the terrorists. Klaus |
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